


place to belong

by artenon



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:22:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24418051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artenon/pseuds/artenon
Summary: After Jessie's mission, Cloud can't bring himself to leave a stressed-out Biggs alone to pace around and sweep the path out in front of his house. The path, which is made of dirt.
Relationships: Biggs/Cloud Strife
Comments: 18
Kudos: 146





	place to belong

**Author's Note:**

> *blows kiss* for cai
> 
> thank you [ailurea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ailurea) and [undieshogun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/undieshogun) for the beta!!

After seeing Wedge home and receiving his payment from Jessie, it only made sense for Cloud to check if Biggs had made it back yet. He knew he didn’t have to, but, well… It wasn’t a big detour or anything. It was practically on the way back to his own apartment.

His steps felt lighter, somehow. He kept reliving the past few hours, the adrenaline from racing through the streets on their motorbikes up to the plate, and then parachuting down from it. The wind whipping around him, the warmth at his back as Jessie leaned against him on the bike, arms secure around his waist.

Jessie—she still confused him, and he wasn’t sure what exactly it was she wanted or didn’t want from him—but she had a good heart. They all did. If a month of seeing each of Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge intermittently for neighborhood watch patrols, relaxing at Seventh Heaven, or tipping him off about new jobs hadn’t been enough to convince Cloud of that, then tonight cinched it.

And they looked out for him, so Cloud would look out for them, even if that just meant making a house call.

Wedge had said that Biggs was prone to overthinking. Cloud figured he would knock on Biggs’s door to find him awake and stressing, at least let him know that Wedge was home safe, and that’d be it.

The reality was worse.

To be fair, probably nothing could have prepared Cloud for the sight of Biggs pacing around and sweeping the path out in front of his house. The path, which was made of dirt.

It was ridiculous. Ridiculous, and way too sad to leave alone. Which was why, five steps away after saying good night, Cloud sighed and turned back.

“Seriously, Biggs,” he said. “Get some rest.”

“Yeah, you too,” Biggs said, still sweeping.

Cloud crossed his arms. Biggs had his back to him as he proceeded with his task, but he stopped when he turned around for his next loop of pace-sweeping and saw Cloud waiting.

“Oh,” Biggs said. “You mean right now.”

“Big day tomorrow,” Cloud said.

Biggs twisted his hands around the broom handle. It was strange to see him like this. The Biggs Cloud usually saw was confident and collected and two steps ahead in getting shit done.

“I’m going in first,” Biggs said to the ground. “Gotta secure a route to the reactor before the others reach Sector 5. I’m catching the first train out tomorrow.”

“Sounds like you should be in bed, then.” Cloud snatched the broom out of Bigg’s hands. “Come on.”

Biggs gave him an affronted look and tried to take the broom back, but Cloud held on fast.

“Really?” Biggs said.

Cloud raised an eyebrow, biting down a smirk as Biggs gave the broom another ineffectual tug.

Biggs sighed. “Okay, okay, I get it. Give it back, already.”

“Nope,” Cloud said. He hooked two fingers around one of the straps of Biggs’s harness and tugged him towards his house.

Biggs stumbled after him. “H-hey!”

Cloud leaned the broom against the wall and tried the door. Unlocked, good. He opened it and pulled Biggs forward, then released the harness and planted his hand in the center of Biggs’s back to push him inside. “In you go.”

Biggs stumbled over the threshold with another garbled protest. He turned around, hands on his hips. “Damn, you’re persistent.”

Cloud shrugged impassively. “Wedge was worried.”

“Ah…” Biggs rubbed the back of his head. “Sounds like him.”

Cloud made a noncommittal sound. He started to back up, but Biggs raised a hand to stop him.

“Hey, you hungry? Why don’t you come in, have a bite to eat?”

He actually was, a bit. Dinner was long away now, and while the others got to enjoy a midnight meal with Jessie’s mother, Cloud had been tasked with breaking into her home.

But coming in would mean keeping Biggs up longer, which was the opposite of Cloud’s current objective.

“I’m fine,” Cloud said. “Not hungry.”

“After all that fighting you did?” Biggs said. “Come on, I’ve got some leftovers I can heat up. It’s no Midgar Special, but it’s something.”

...And clearly staying up longer was what Biggs wanted.

Cloud sighed. “Fine.”

Might as well. Biggs wanted to feel useful, and if feeding Cloud would make him stress a bit less about tomorrow, then it was no great hardship to comply.

He followed Biggs inside and glanced around as Biggs put a small pot on the stove. His house was bigger than Cloud’s apartment, though still small, and just as bare. Cloud didn’t have much besides his sword and his clothes, but it looked like Biggs didn’t have much either, despite having years on Cloud’s few weeks of living in Sector 7. The kitchen and living room had bare-bones furnishings, and the most Cloud could see of a personal touch was the bookshelf half-filled with worn books—then again, maybe not, because they looked like children’s books, judging by the large, blocky titles like _Peter and the Moogle_ running down the spines.

Well, Biggs’s reading habits were none of Cloud’s business. Cloud leaned his sword against the wall by the door and took a seat at the table as Biggs rattled around the cupboards.

Biggs plopped a bowl down in front of Cloud. “Here ya go.”

“Thanks.”

Biggs jerked a thumb towards the narrow hallway off the living room. “I’m gonna hop in the shower. Don’t break anything.”

“I’ll try not to,” Cloud said.

Biggs snorted. “Alright, man.” He patted Cloud’s shoulder and headed off. A minute later, the shower started running.

Cloud dug into the reheated stew and hummed around his first mouthful. Tifa sometimes cooked for him now that he was in Midgar, but Cloud was still used to rations and instant meals, and little comforts like this warmed him to his core. He savored it, not thinking about anything in particular, but sinking into the taste of good food and the white noise of running water.

Biggs returned a few minutes later, stopping behind the chair opposite Cloud. Cloud looked up and nearly dropped his spoon.

He only ever saw Biggs geared up; he wasn’t prepared for—for this. For his hands, braced on the chair back sans gloves. For his hair, usually swept stylishly back, now lying flat and damp atop his head. Biggs always wore tight-fitting tees, and his harness snug over it, yet somehow the slightly-baggy sweatshirt he had on now was infinitely more distracting.

“How’s the food?” Biggs asked.

“Oh, uh, it’s good,” Cloud said, staring hard into his almost-empty bowl and trying not to think about how much he wanted to brush Biggs’s hair back where it clung to his forehead. It was an unfamiliar feeling for him, this wanting to reach out, and he didn’t quite know how to deal with it.

“Good, good,” Biggs said vaguely.

Cloud looked up and saw the faraway look in Biggs’s eyes as he pulled the chair back and sank into the seat. Cloud knew he should say something to distract him, but his mouth was stuck and he’d never been a good conversationalist in the first place.

It might have made him a bad friend—were they friends?—but Cloud didn’t know what else to do, so he just continued to eat quietly while Biggs stared moodily at the table, chin propped in one hand while the other drummed against the table, the sound of it muffled by the placemat in front of him.

When Cloud finished eating a minute later, Biggs practically jumped from his seat to take the bowl to the sink and begin washing it.

Cloud stood. “I can do that.”

“No, I got it,” Biggs said.

It was probably best to let him be up and doing something. Cloud wandered closer and leaned against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest and wondering how he might convince Biggs to get some sleep after this.

Biggs ran the bowl under water, rinsing off the soap. “Say, think you could join the neighborhood watch tomorrow? The beasts on Scrap Boulevard have been getting worse, and I’d feel better knowing the guys have you at their back.”

“Sure.” Cloud shrugged, though Biggs couldn’t see it. He’d already been planning on joining the watch anyway, what with the others being gone and no one besides Jessie hiring him in the past few days.

“Thanks, man,” Biggs said. He dried off the bowl and put it away in a cupboard. “You know, I can’t help feeling that’s a bad omen, too. More and more monsters… What if another drake shows up?”

First Avalanche HQ running an op, then his parachute being blown off course, now this. Cloud was beginning to think Biggs could take any happenstance and spin it into an ill portent.

Instead of pointing that out, Cloud just replied, “I can handle it.”

“We have backup plans in case something goes wrong, but what if it’s not enough?” Biggs whirled around and strode to the table. He tried to fix the placemats, but they were already set evenly, so he just shifted one of them back and forth. “They changed the train times tonight, what if they change them again tomorrow?” He straightened up and started to loop back towards the sink. “What if—”

“Biggs.” Cloud stepped forward to intercept and grabbed Biggs’s face with both hands. “Stop. Worrying.”

Biggs froze. His mouth opened slightly, jaw shifting under Cloud’s palms. “Uh—”

Cloud made an aborted noise in his throat. He’d wanted to stop Biggs not just from pacing, but from rambling on and on, but moving to grab his face like that had put them a lot closer than Cloud had anticipated. Now Cloud could see the creases under his eyes, and he realized that this probably wasn’t the first night that Biggs had lost sleep overthinking in recent days. His earlier impulse to brush back Biggs’s shower-damp hair slammed back into him with greater force than before.

Cloud dropped his hands.

“Going now. Night,” he muttered, and tried to turn, but then a pair of hands were on _his_ face and tugging him back.

Cloud froze in place. Biggs’s eyes were wide as he held Cloud. Unbidden, Cloud’s eyes flicked down to Biggs’s mouth to catch Biggs pressing his teeth to his lower lip.

Biggs’s hold on him gentled so that he was almost _caressing_ Cloud, his hands rough but warm against his cheeks, and Cloud suppressed a shudder. He wished, suddenly, that he wasn’t wearing gloves, so that he could have felt Biggs’s cheeks under bare palms, warm skin and the soft prickle of stubble. He didn’t know the last time he’d touched someone so gently, so intimately.

He wasn’t sure if he ever had.

Overwhelmed, needing distance, Cloud brought a hand up and curled his fingers around Biggs’s wrist. But then he left it anchored there, because he didn’t actually want Biggs to let go. And he didn’t really want to let go of Biggs, either.

Biggs studied his face intently; Cloud squirmed.

“What?” he said.

“Well,” Biggs said, “worst case scenario, you cut me in half.”

“...What?”

“Shit,” Biggs said, and kissed him.

It was over before Cloud could fully process that it was happening. All he got was a flash of _warm_ and a split-second of breath ghosting over his lips before Biggs dropped his hands and stepped back quickly. Cloud mirrored him, moving back.

“Uh,” Cloud said. His lips tingled.

Biggs cleared his throat.

 _Do that again_ , Cloud wanted to say, except—ugh. He couldn’t just say that. He could just grab Biggs and kiss him again, maybe. Except just thinking that made his face heat up. And anyway, maybe Biggs didn’t even want to kiss again; he was the one who backed away.

Screw this.

“Should probably go,” Cloud said, gesturing uselessly behind him where the door probably was. “Let you rest.”

“Yeah,” Biggs said. “Good plan.”

Cloud took another step back, then two more to the side after he stumbled into the table and sent it skidding a couple inches with a dull scratch over the floor.

“See you later,” Cloud said.

“Uh-huh.”

Cloud managed to tear his gaze away, somehow, and made it the last few steps to the door before he stopped, hand on the knob.

Some things were more important than his embarrassment.

He looked over his shoulder. “Are you gonna stay up all night freaking out about this?”

“Um,” Biggs said, looking very caught-out in a way that Cloud interpreted to mean _yes_.

“I’m not planning on cutting you in half.”

Biggs huffed a laugh and pushed a hand into his hair. “Good to know.”

“Did it feel wrong?” Cloud asked.

Biggs looked surprised. “No. Definitely not.” He drifted a bit closer. “Just—dunno—you’re pretty hard to read, man.”

“We’re good.” Cloud swallowed his embarrassment. “I mean… I liked it. You want me to stay?”

“Oh,” Biggs said. “Umm. Maybe not tonight? I mean…”

Cloud shrugged, desperately hoping he didn’t look as out of depth as he felt. “It’s all fine. Just. Stop worrying about everything. Go to bed. The others are counting on you tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” Biggs said. He drew close enough to settle a warm hand on Cloud’s bicep. “You should go get some rest, too. I’m counting on you too, you know.”

This sort of conversation, at least, he could handle.

“You don’t need to worry about me,” Cloud said.

“Of course I don’t, Mr. Professional.” Biggs grinned. “Fine, then tomorrow night, after everything _definitely_ goes off without a hitch, how about I buy you a drink?”

“Tifa lets us drink for free.”

Biggs paused. “Fair enough. But you’ll be there? We missed you this evening.”

“Barret kicked me out,” Cloud said.

“He’ll come around,” Biggs said. “So, what do you say?”

Cloud thought back to being at Jessie’s house, the good smells and cheerful conversation that drifted through the door as Cloud crept into the bedroom to steal a keycard. Even if it was a diversion, the warmth in the others’ voices as they conversed with Jessie’s mother wasn’t all fake.

It was the same closeness and familiarity that they’d shown in Seventh Heaven, at least as far as Cloud had been able to glimpse of their gathering before Barret had made it clear that Cloud wasn’t welcome.

Leaving hadn’t hurt at the time, but something in him twinged to think back on it now. Something that had to do with the hand still on his arm, and something to do with belonging.

Or with wanting to belong.

“Okay,” Cloud said. “Tomorrow night.”

Biggs looked almost relieved. “Great,” he said, smiling. He squeezed Cloud’s bicep briefly, then dropped his hand. “Then I guess it’s good night for now.”

“Yeah.” Giving in this time to his impulse, Cloud leaned forward and pressed a brief kiss to Biggs’s cheek. “For good luck,” he said. “To balance out the bad omens.”

Biggs stared at him. The corners of his mouth tugged up in a grin and a flush crept up Cloud’s cheeks.

“Have you always been this sweet deep down?” Biggs asked.

“Good night,” Cloud said loudly and left, but when he stepped out into the cool night air, an amused _good night_ following him before the door clicked shut, he was smiling.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!! you can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/qorktree)


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